Officials Aren’t Counting The Growing Cost Of Online Obamacare Fraud

Don't ask the federal government how much money citizens are losing to Obamacare Internet scams. Tracking the dollars stolen through fake exchanges and other sites that prey on insurance applicants apparently is not under the Administration's jurisdiction.

The criminals are on top of it though. Even before the $400 million official HealthCare.gov marketplace opened on Oct. 1, 2013, potentially fraudulent sites had reserved various incarnations of "Obamacare" for their homepage name, according to Web researchers. Now there are about 700 copycat sites, said John Bambenek, who watches abnormal online activity for the nonprofit Internet Storm Center. The expectation is that some of these webpages are for hosting bogus insurance marketplaces. “The real fraud is so-called fake exchanges . . . entities that set up what appear to be exchanges, but are not, with a link to provide your personal data and/or payment,” said Mark Rasch, former head of the Justice Department’s computer crime unit. Soon, “phishing” emails, trick text messages and sham phone calls will direct you to online forms where you essentially enroll your personal information with identity thieves. But the FBI, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Health and Human Services each say following the money is not their agency’s responsibility. While unable to provide any fraud data, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did provide instructional materials on how to avoid being conned. One flier advises citizens to be suspicious of anyone charging a fee to enroll. A separate announcement promotes a new fraud hotline reachable by phone.